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PCBD-Oct2017

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8 The PCB Design Magazine • October 2017
The temperature is starting to drop and that
can only mean one thing: trade show season is
in full swing.
I recently went on a productive road trip:
PCB West one week and SMTA International
the next. I conducted some great interviews
at PCB West, and caught up with speakers like
Rick Hartley, Susy Webb, and Mike Creeden.
The show floor was sold out, and it drew a
sizable crowd throughout the day. Remember
when conventional wisdom dictated that one-
day shows would never work? Now one-day
shows, such as PCB West and the regional SMTA
tabletop shows, are too valuable for exhibitors
to pass up.
I spent the weekend playing tourist in
90-degree Chicago, and then SMTA Interna-
tional began. This show gets bigger every year;
combining the IPC fall meetings with SMTAI
has proven to be a good call. We interviewed
dozens of technologists and managers for our
Real Time with… SMTAI video program, and
Patty Goldman, editor of the The PCB Magazine,
conducted numerous audio interviews as well.
At both shows, almost everyone I spoke with
was excited about our industry. A lot of compa-
nies are hiring, and many have open positions.
Prototron Circuits just hired some new staff,
and President Dave Ryder was still trying to
fill one last spot. Are we approaching zero
unemployment in the PCB world? It certainly
sounds attractive, until you have open positions
and no qualified workers to fill them. We see
evidence of this every month when our maga-
zines feature a half-dozen pages in our Career
Opportunities section for PCB companies.
On the tech side, most of the designers and
design engineers I spoke with were concerned
by Andy Shaughnessy
I-CONNECT007
Keeping an Eye on Signal Integrity
THE SHAUGHNESSY REPORT